


Hyakkimaru's Birth

by Ainikki



Series: Dororo Novels [1]
Category: Dororo (Manga), Dororo (Novel)
Genre: And this is a bit of that for the curious, Gen, That's because I'm translating the novels, You may have noticed I haven't written a Dororo fic in a while, graphic realistic body horror ahead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:19:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29473848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ainikki/pseuds/Ainikki
Summary: Twenty years ago, Toriumi Jinzou wrote three "Dororo" novels of between 300-400 pages each. Even with the new anime fervor and a bunch of great new manga based on "Dororo," the novels remain untranslated. Until now.This is the first chapter, with links to where I'll be posting the rest.
Relationships: Hyakkimaru & Jukai (Dororo)
Series: Dororo Novels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164920
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Hyakkimaru's Birth

**Author's Note:**

> What it says on the tin. There's never too much "Dororo" for me and I feel the need to share with those who speak my native language (English) now that I've progressed enough in Japanese to produce a passable translation.

**Prologue - Iwakura Shrine**

Clouds blotted out the sun shining through the branches of the cedar trees on the northern part of the mountain. The mournful voices of the cicadas went completely silent. An unusually cold wind cut through Jukai all the way to his bones.

“This is bad.” Jukai left the orchids he’d dug up where they were, set aside his hatchet and dashed out of the forest grove. His black-lacquered hat threatened to fly off as he ran, so he brought his hand up over it to keep it in place. He felt the aura of something very evil and powerful nearby and was shaken to his soul.

Lighting flashed behind him, striking a cedar tree in the grove where he’d just been. The entire grove went up in flames in seconds. If he’d hesitated for even a moment before running, he would never have been able to escape the grove.

A chill went up Jukai’s spine. The strangest thing about the lightning was that there was no thunder afterwards.

“That’s weird,” he muttered. The sky was gray and leaden with storm clouds. He stood still on a riverbank to catch his breath and felt the cold air blowing down from the summit of the mountain overhead.

“Ah!” He saw something at the foot of the mountain. This mountain was shaped a bit unusually, with steep sides and a rounded and slightly tapered top like a gourd. The foot of the mountain was littered with huge stones that shone even in the low light. Jukai had stepped onto temple grounds without realizing it. The area between Kurama and Ohara was full of rare herbs and plants that could be used for medicine. He must have gotten so absorbed in his gathering that he’d failed to realize it when he crossed the border into temple lands.

When Jukai was a child, he’d crossed the Wakasaji road into Yase Ohara with his father. He could still remember his father explaining the temples in this area to him then: “During the Heian period, Emperor Kanmu established four temples on mountaintops in every cardinal direction under the supervision of the imperial family. But Taoist priests imbued those mountains with significance even before that time. In the way of yin and yang that Taoists call Onmyodo, the northern mountain, Konpira, represents the darkness of yin, while the southern mountain, Hyoutankuzure, represents the light of yang.

“Less than ten ri separate those mountains from each other, but they’re complete opposites. Konpira has a large shrine, but Hyoutankuzure’s temple is marked by large stones at the foot of the mountain. All four temples create a perimeter to help protect the capital from attack.”

The temple at the foot of Hyoutankuzure was called Iwakura by the locals; the mountain itself was usually called Mount Hyoutan. It was strange, but all the storm clouds that Jukai could see were gathered along the narrow strip of sky between Konpira and Hyoutankuzure along the line of the Takano river; the rest of the sky was clear and cloudless. The clouds just above his head whirled and twisted around in a cyclone shape. He was certain there would be more lightning soon.

Jukai thought that maybe he’d angered the god of Iwakura shrine by entering its sacred lands without permission, but the evil aura he felt didn’t come from the large stones at the foot of the mountain. It came from the clouds. As he ran toward the large stones, his eyes stopped on something floating in the river.

The river was swollen with runoff from the long rainy season. The Takano river flowed from the north to the south, so this particular part of the river received tributaries from all the northern mountains and was quite wide and deep. There was something small and black floating in the very center of the river, pushed gently downstream by the weak current.

The capital was a place of great scenic beauty surrounded by mountains, so many members of the Imperial family and their samurai retainers built second homes to retreat to just outside the city. It was possible that the thing floating in the river was something they’d discarded.

Jukai felt the aura of the same evil spirit as before. “This spirit is dangerous.” Jukai quickly crossed his arms and balled his hands into fists. He raised his crossed arms above his head. This was a gesture he had learned from Buddhist priests; it was used to exorcise spirits and demons.

“I think it’s trying to challenge me.”

Lightning flashed again. The huge stone directly behind him splintered and sparked as it collapsed into pieces. Jukai was so stunned that he fell. He lost the protection of his exorcising pose as he rolled toward the riverbank.

Again, he didn’t hear any thunder.

He wasn’t sure he would be able to protect against the spirit’s next attack. Jukai sat cross-legged on the riverbank and prayed. “Great Buddha, worker of miracles...”

He saw the black thing floating in the river from upstream approaching. At this distance, he could tell that the thing was floating inside an ordinary basin about two shaku and five sun wide. While there was nothing unusual about the basin itself, it was no longer moving downstream, but upstream--against the current and directly toward him. The basin got caught in the reeds just in front of Jukai and stopped.

Jukai peeked over the reeds and took a look inside the basin.

The stones marking Iwakura shrine flashed with bright light. A shaft of light reflected off the stones to the peak of Hyoutankuzure, then shot forth like an arrow towards the summit of Konpira. The light connected the two mountain peaks like a long line of white thread.

At the same time, the light from Konpira reflected off the metal of the basin, bathing both the basin and its contents in sudden rainbow-colored illumination.

Lightning struck the basin, but the light surrounding it bounced the lightning aside harmlessly with a profusion of sparks. Once again, there was no thunder.

As the light from Konpira’s summit faded, the light reflecting off the rocks of Iwakura shrine pierced through the gray clouds overhead. Was this a sign of some god seeking revenge against the evil spirit?

Finally, Jukai heard thunder around him three times, very close by, but he saw no lightning. As soon as the thunder passed, silence fell. The swirling storm clouds and the rainbow-colored light surrounding the basin completely disappeared.

The gray sky turned bright in an instant, as if someone had banished the shadow of yin with the light of yang. The fog on Hyoutankuzure dissipated. It seemed that the evil spirit had been defeated.

The basin stuck in the reeds rocked back and forth. When Jukai stood up and looked into the basin, he saw something wrapped in a tiny flower-patterned kimono.

Whatever it was wasn’t moving. It made no sound. Jukai entered the river in order to get closer. He wasn’t frightened. Someone had gone to the trouble to wrap this thing in a kimono, and that act of basic kindness worked against the idea that the thing in the basin might be harmful.

Slowly and carefully, Jukai lifted the wrapped object from the basin. He felt something fleshy and soft in his hands. “Did someone throw away their dead dog or cat?” he muttered. He unwrapped the kimono partway and took a look inside.

He gasped and almost dropped the baby in his arms, but narrowly managed to hold on. Judging by its size, the baby had just been born. Jukai had studied medicine for more than thirty years and treated more people and maladies than he could count. He didn’t think that any sort of wound or illness could surprise him anymore.

But this infant was shocking. It had no arms or legs, but Jukai saw no signs of amputation. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on the baby anywhere. It looked like the baby’s limbs had just fallen off of their own accord, or perhaps they’d never formed in the womb. The skin covering the shoulder and hip joints was completely smooth.

The head looked normal at first glance, but when he looked just a little closer he noticed that the baby had no nose and no eyes. There were only empty holes where those appendages should have been. The baby’s umbilical cord had not been cut; it extended from the bellybutton down past the edges of the kimono. Jukai also noticed thankfully ordinary sex organs that revealed that the baby was male. Jukai slowly brought the baby in closer. He could just barely feel a very faint heartbeat.

“He’s alive.” Jukai shuddered. The baby was so monstrous that he could scarcely be called human, but he was alive. He’d heard about limbless stillborn infants from physicians he’d studied with in India, but every stillborn he’d ever seen or heard of at least had signs of developing bone and muscle tissue. He had seen a limbless stillborn with his own eyes only once. That infant had been born while its bones were still developing, so its arms and legs had been nubs of bone and its ribs had formed an imperfect fan shape because they never managed extend all the way across the torso.

This infant’s ribs seemed fully developed, but his limbs were gone, and he was somehow still alive. The problem seemed related to his ability to grow new bone and muscle tissue, but Jukai wouldn’t be able to diagnose him properly without a full examination.

This boy’s mother must have been appalled when he was born. She might have been traumatized enough to throw his body away before checking if he was even alive. The baby couldn’t even move his limbs, so it was almost impossible to tell if he was breathing just by looking. And his mother probably would have buried him properly if he’d been a normal stillborn. She probably thought he’d been possessed by a monster or a spirit and cast him into the river as quickly as possible.

Jukai knew that such an explanation was likely, but he wasn’t so sure. Why had the mother wrapped the baby in a kimono before throwing him away?

“I’m sure that when this baby was born, he wasn’t able to cry out,” Jukai said. “His mouth is normal. There’s an indentation where the nose should be. He can breathe, even if he can’t cry. If his mother had heard him cry, she probably would have checked to see if he were alive. And if he was born as an ordinary baby and then cursed, she would have found some way to bless or purify him and cut the umbilical cord. But she didn’t do any of those things.”

Some people believed that the Takano river was sacred. The kimono that the baby was wrapped in was decorated and clearly expensive. It was hard to believe his mother was a commoner. She might be a member of the Imperial Court, or maybe a samurai’s wife.

The hollows around the baby’s eyes twitched and spasmed suddenly. Jukai got the sense that the baby was begging for something.

“It’s inhuman.” He wasn’t talking about the baby.

The thin clouds overhead gave way to bright sunshine that shone down upon the stones of Iwakura shrine. Jukai suddenly heard the voice of his old familiar teacher, Youda.

“Look, Jukai. This child was protected by the cosmic forces of light and darkness that dwell in these mountains. He’s been cursed by an evil spirit. He may have some kind of power capable of tipping the balance between light and darkness. He is also a patient that will require all of your medical knowledge and skill if he is to survive.”

“But, master, I...”

The sun passed behind the clouds. Jukai did not hear Youda’s voice again; this was the first time he’d heard his old master’s voice since he’d passed away many years ago.

_Did I just hallucinate that? I'd know that voice anywhere._

As the sun began to set over the mountains, the cicadas resumed their mournful cries.

**Translation notes:**

A ri is an old Japanese unit of measurement equal to approximately 3.927km or 2.44 miles.

Two shaku and five sun: again, these are ancient Japanese measurements. This corresponds to about two and a half feet wide, or 75 centimeters wide.

Jukai: Literally means "longevity ocean," and seems to be derived from Chinese. Jukai originally comes from China in this novel.

Iwakura: Literally means the dwelling place of a god (usually in reference to a large rock, as here).

Hyoutankuzure: Literally means gourd-shaped collapsing (mountain).

Konpira: The god of seafaring; also the name of the mountain in this chapter.

Kurama and Ohara: This scene and much of the first part of the novel takes place very close to Japan's old capital city, Kyoto. Kurama and Ohara are both close to Kyoto. The Takanogawa (Takano river) is also in Kyoto prefecture.

**Author's Note:**

> Link to translation: https://dororo-novels.blogspot.com/
> 
> Note that this is ongoing and slow, since I'm translating Seirei no Moribito concurrently and that one takes priority. These novels are at the upper limit of what I'm able to translate. There's a lot of historical vocabulary, ancient place names, and Chinese medicine preparations (in Chinese!) in this book, so it's safe to say it's putting me through my paces. I love it, though. I wouldn't translate it otherwise.


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